


All That Lives Must Die

by flying_snowmen



Category: The 100 (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 15:44:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2657540
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flying_snowmen/pseuds/flying_snowmen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wells thinks belatedly that we all meet the reaper the same way: as nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Lives Must Die

_“This is the way the world ends_

_Not with a bang but a whimper.”_

_\- T. S. Eliot_

* * *

 

When Wells loses his mother at age nine, he has no idea what to do. Just a few hours earlier, he had been sitting with her in the sick ward, trying, unsuccessfully, to beat his mother in chess, using the techniques his father had taught him. Then, in the middle of watching his favorite soccer game, his father walks in the room, and Wells can sense that something is wrong. With downcast, teary eyes, his father sighs, and Wells knows his mother is gone. His father doesn't even try to stop Wells when he sprints out of their home, tears streaming down his face as he runs to the one place he knows he’ll be okay.

The ever so reliable Clarke is perched in her favorite chair in the library, reading the Atlas she never puts down. Wells bursts inside, looking around frantically until he spots her. Clarke knows instantly what’s happened-- pain written all over his face. Her own heart is about to burst as she walks over to him, his chest heaving slowly with each breath he struggles to take. Clarke wraps her arms around him, and a loud sob rips through his body, blocking out all of the glances and hushed questions from the scattered library patrons. _Is that the Chancellor’s son?_

He spends the night at Clarke’s house, despite Abby’s broken apologies and the pained looks Jake keeps sending him. As he lies on their tattered couch, tears long dried on his cheeks, he thinks about his mother. His mother-- who lit up every room she entered and demanded attention; who still cracked jokes and told him stories after she’d started coughing up blood; who mere hours before her death had been smiling and running a hand along Wells’s back as he laid next to her on the bed. In an instant, she had left the world forever. She’d never see Wells reach double digits. She’d never see Wells get married. She’d never see Wells on the ground. A single moment tore apart his family forever, and that terrifies him. One minute, she was alive and happy-- and the next she was being wheeled off to be shot into space. Wells didn't feel anything the moment she left.

 

~

 

Wells cries when he finds out what his father did to Jake. He doesn't know who told the Chancellor, but he wants to hurt whoever did this to Clarke. Clarke, who is locked away in solitary confinement after watching her father die. Jake, who only wanted to _help_ the Ark and its citizens, was floated like a common criminal. He stood in the chamber as he watched his family cry-- waiting for the vacuum to pull him out into the endless void.

So when he learns that Clarke and other delinquents are being sent to the ground, he becomes determined to go with them. He has to make sure that Clarke does not suffer the same fate their dead parents did. He can’t wait around on the Ark, playing chess with himself as he avoids his father while Clarke might be dying. He can’t-- _he won’t_ let that happen to him again.

 

~

 

On the ground, Wells hates everything. Clarke won’t speak to him. Bellamy starts his own personal reign of terror. Murphy keeps sending him strange and cryptic death threats. No one will listen to him, even though he knows what they need to do. He’s been preparing for the ground his whole life.

Then they all start taking off the wristbands, and he can’t believe it. How could you do that to someone you love? How could you let them think you’d died? Wells has dealt with that kind of pain, and he wouldn't wish it on anyone. So when Bellamy and his band of brothers cut off his wristband, he cries again. Despite everything that has happened between him and his father, Wells still loves him. Now, his father will think he's dead and that he’s lost them both. His wife; his son. Wells cries because he was selfish-- he went to Earth to avoid the pain of losing Clarke, but had never considered the pain he might cause his father.

But things start to get better when Clarke discovers the truth. All is forgiven and he finally has his best friend back. He knows she’ll hate her mother. He wants to remind her that people can be gone in a moment-- she should try to forgive Abby. He doesn't want anyone to get hurt anymore.

 

~

 

Earth is a beautiful place. Wells likes to watch the sunrises-- it brings him back to the images he always saw in books while in space. Nothing can encapsulate their beauty; the pictures do the sunrise absolutely no justice. Wells wonder why some people even try. Clarke used to draw all the time. She was extremely talented too-- always walking into his house with charcoaled fingers, complaining about how she couldn't quite draw the stars she had seen outside the window that night. Wells thinks maybe Clarke could have captured the beauty of a sunrise.

So with his newly restored friendship with Clarke on his mind, he gladly offers to let Charlotte watch this sunrise with him. She looks scared and nervous, and he knows that feeling. She just needs a friend, and he’s more than willing to be that person for her.

But Charlotte has something in her not even Wells could have suspected, and before he knows it, he’s gripping his neck and watching this girl apologize through her tears. It reminds him of his mother-- and the time he learned she was terminal and the sobs wracked through his body. He apologized over and over, _I’m sorry, mom._ But he couldn't save her. Wells never really believed in an afterlife, but he finds himself starting to now, if it means he’ll be reunited with his mother.

 _I’m sorry._ Charlotte keeps chanting as she rocks back and forth, but does she know what she’s done? His father is probably eating dinner all alone in his flat-- walls lined with family pictures,  oblivious to the fact that his son is dying _now_. And, Clarke is probably sleeping peacefully in her tent, happy that she and Wells have finally reconciled. He got his best friend back only to lose her in death.

~

 

Death surprises Wells. He had always thought that something grand would happen. Maybe not a white light, but something to let him know that he was about to take his last breath before leaving the world forever. Instead, he just clutches his neck as he feels his breaths grow shorter. Then, nothing. One moment, he can feel the grass beneath his body and the coldness of the early morning air. The sunrise illuminates the green trees and brown mud around him. All of his senses are working. Then, nothing.

It’s not that he wanted a big production. A large figure galloping out of the sky and pulling him to a place where his mother would be, where Clarke’s father would be. He didn't want or expect that, but at least something. Instead, he takes his last breath only to disappear into nothingness, leaving his loved ones and his people behind.

Wells thinks belatedly that we all meet the reaper the same way: as nothing.

 

**Author's Note:**

> As always, [Katelyn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/troubledpancakes) is a goddess and never ceases to amaze me. So, thank you.  
> We read Hamlet and The Hollow Men in English class, so obviously I'm a bit existential right now. Also, I made up the stuff about Wells's mom. They never really talk about her? At least not that I can remember. Anyway, I've always been fascinated by Wells, so I felt like writing about him.  
> Also, the title is a line by Gertrude in Hamlet, since we're using quotes.


End file.
